Remembrances
by Shylee Taregan
Summary: A series of thoughts, regrets, and recollections of a time when life still didn't make sense. [Marauder's Era. Complete, oneshot.]


**Remembrances**

**Author's Note.** My very first non-comedic Harry Potter fic. It is a collection of drabbles that I needed to write down. I really hope you enjoy reading them as much as I loved writing them.

* * *

**More Furious In Every Way --**_Pain-- _

Lily

The first time it happened, she thought it was, regardless, a pretty good hex.

The third time it happened, she threatened to shrink his head in with a bludger.

The fifth time it happened, he cost her her best friend.

And despite what it had cost, she still wishes that she could see him again.

* * *

**It Defies Your Eyes --**_Knowledge--_

James

He had crossed the lines many times – as an illegal animagus, as a werewolf's best friend, as a devilishly handsome and stubborn warlock. He was not amazing, but he put on quite a show.

That's why, when Lily Evans told him, with so much anger and so much love in her eyes, not to hurt Severus Snape, it was all he could do to obey her.

* * *

**The Heart is a Battleground **_--Passion--_

Sirius

He shared his best friends' everything – their laughter, their anger, their prejudice, their food, their clothes, their very _homes_.

But when it came to that which he wanted most, he could not share it. She wasn't his to keep.

* * *

**Wait Until The Bomb Drops --**_Rooftops--_

Remus

Though his affliction – his "furry little problem" – and the knowledge of what he could do tempered his volatile nature, Remus never thought himself wise. He was merely cautious, forever waiting for the one moment when he would have to step out of the shadows and disappear.

* * *

**Let's Make Our Escape --**_Higher--_

Snape

He drank her in greedily, sneeringly, for she was his and no one else's. He would sacrifice everything to keep her to himself, to keep her smile, to keep her laughter, to keep her tears. He would give it all if she could fade with him.

* * *

**Things Change --**_Reward--_

Peter

Had he any knowledge of the future, perhaps Peter would never have befriended Potter and his friends. He was insecure, in need of a bigger shadow to fall behind. He had never been given a chance to shine, and he knew he would not be able to even so. The best thing that he could hope for was a bigger shadow all the while. He would wait for one more thing to justify his existence.

* * *

**Through Valleys --**_Sorrow--_

Lily

She feared for him. She feared that, like so many others, he would be drawn away and swallowed up and disappear from her life forever. She feared that, like so many others, he would trap himself, destroy who he was, forget who they had been.

She feared that she would not be able to pull him through time.

* * *

**I Need to Know --**_Truth--_

James

It boiled his blood, seeing them together. He was pampered and accustomed to getting what he wanted. He never thought of himself as spoiled; spoiled was someone like Narcissa Black or her seventh-year boyfriend Lucius.

That's why her smiles, their hugs – it destroyed him inside, because he knew that she would not see him for what he was. She was too _good_ for him – for Severus Snape and James Potter. But he wanted her to see that he was less bad for her than Snape was.

* * *

**All the Reasons Why --**_Skies--_

Sirius

Of his pureblooded Slytherin lineage, he was the only Black since the founding of his family that had ever set foot into Gryffindor. It was not this that made him proud. Nor was it the fact that, though a Slytherin, his uncle Alphard was the only family member he had who cared for him simply because he broke away. It was not even the fact that he was extremely good-looking and quite intelligent.

It was the fact that, now, more than just his lineage defined him; Remus defined him, James defined him, even Peter defined him.

But, above all else, he had deigned to define himself.

* * *

**Sing to Me --**_Longing--_

Remus

While the students of Hogwarts fretted about exams and twenty-four-inch essays, about the latest couple and who dumped whom, Remus Lupin could not help but long to be carefree like them. He longed to care less about what he became every month, and care more about the trivial things that saw the rest of them through their day.

But the moon sang to him, and every full moon, Remus would howl for something he hated.

* * *

**What Could Be --**_Sense--_

Snape

He described his world as a house, not a home, for his home was wherever Lily Evans was. He had been abused in his first home, sneered at and taunted in his second, and decided that, whatever the circumstances, his home would forever remain embodied in his best friend.

* * *

**Measurements and Wands --**_Repetition--_

Peter

What hurt the most was the fact that he somehow knew his happiness could not last. For that reason, he tried too hard. So hard, in fact, that he forgot how to feel at all. All that was left was the fear.

* * *

**Watching You Walk Away --**_Could--_

Lily

She had tried. She had tried so hard to love him, so hard to see him as he saw her. And, just when she thought she had succeeded, he had destroyed it. He didn't realize it as vividly as she did, perhaps, or maybe he did more so, but he killed her a little inside when he walked away.

Because being best friends meant that you did not take no for an answer, no matter how badly you were at fault.

* * *

**Temperature Rising --**_Try--_

James

When he finally forced his head to shrink a little and his ego to come down from the clouds, he was able to convince her that he was not so bad after all. It was, he thought, through his jokes, Remus's kindness, Sirius's laughter, and Peter's comportment that the fifth Marauder was inducted unofficially, and Lily was able to fall for him a little more.

* * *

**At Your Feet --**_Need--_

Sirius

Sirius was never able to express how deeply grateful he was to the Potters when they took him in. Though it was at Hogwarts that he found his true family, it was at James's that he found his true home.

* * *

**Live by Faith --**_Way--_

Remus

And so he hoped, as graduation approached, that somehow, a miracle would occur, and he could be cured of his affliction. But as May rolled into June, he knew it was pointless to hope. He had gotten O's on all twelve of his O.W.L.s, and had passed his N.E.W.T.s with flying colors. He had been a prefect and a model student, and he had two pureblooded best friends that, though he hated to admit it, could aid him if he needed it.

But Remus had always made his own way, and even though society would never accept a werewolf among it, Remus was determined to try.

* * *

**All the Possibilities --**_Disbelief--_

Snape

After she stopped speaking to him, he watched her from a distance, growing ever closer to Potter and ever more ingrained within the fold that was the Marauders. Every day, he awoke, thinking that today was the day when he would renounce the Dark Arts and return to Lily Evans. Every afternoon, she passed him in the hall and saw through him. And every night, he dreamt of the sunrises in her hair and the fields in her eyes as tears painted silver trails down his face.

* * *

**What is Wrong --**_Save--_

Peter

He never told them, but he thought deeply of the Dark Arts. But like all weak men, he hid his fear of them behind a mask of greedy acceptance and nonchalance. He learned to wear both masks over his fear, but he was never any good at masquerading as something he was not.

* * *

**Author's Note.** Review, please. 


End file.
